Saturday, 21 May 2016

Death of a Salesman

The picture is not so much a news shot as an epitaph.

Here we have Nigel Farage, one of the best media
performers in British politics, one of the most startling British party leaders,
engaged in a media event over which hovers an aura of political death. And
Farage doesn’t even appear to realise it.

First – and this is the smaller point, I will get to
the bigger point in a moment -- you have to wonder how any press officer
arranged for his party leader to launch anything, much less a ‘campaign battle
bus,’ like this; to launch it alone, with no supporters, with no crowd, the open-top
bus isolated in a deserted London square except for a few photographers on hand
to record the emptiness.

The top of the bus should have been crowded with every
UKIP MEP, local councillor and party official the press officer could have corralled,
all of them looking happy, confident and cheering.

Every other space on the bus should have been packed
out with members of the youth wing of UKIP. London party activists should have
been placed so they crowded the bus at street level. There should have been a
band playing marching tunes for the 30 minutes before the launch to draw in
many curious passers-by from busier nearby streets.

This is basic press officer stuff.

Then when the party leader appeared and climbed to the
top of the bus to join the cheering crowd, that would have been a picture that
told a story of campaign life and vigour.

Instead the UKIP leader had a crowd turnout that
failed to match the numbers at a pauper’s funeral. And the national press photographers
were there to record the sad little disaster.

But this, as I said, is the smaller point. It is however
indicative of the larger problem which is the refusal of most of the Leave campaign
– in this case, the UKIP part of the Leave campaign – to grasp the difference
between holding onto their base vote and persuading the undecided voters to
support Leave.

In other words, they refuse to plan for a referendum
instead of a general election. Or, in truth, to plan at all.

In fact, the isolation of Farage on the bus, had he
realised the disaster in which he was participating, could have been turned
around, even at the last moment.

It was an opportunity to make a strong, simple
statement of policy, undistracted by anything else going on, that would have
been picked up by the waiting reporters.

All that was needed was an adherence to basic press
relations, even simpler than knowing how to pack an open-topped bus: Farage only
had to decide the message for the day. A message is a one-sentence statement of
about 30 words.

The message had to include two things: one of Farage’s
most important points, and one of his target-audience’s most important points.

In this case, and in every case from here to June 23,
that target-audience is the block of undecided voters. It is not UKIP fans. The
campaign already knows how they are going to vote.

This is simple stuff. I’ve been a journalist all my
working life, and this is exactly what any reporter expects of hear if he is
covering a professional political launch of any kind: a message.

The message would have been the headline.

An interview itself, however brief, would have
included three talking points. Experienced press officers know to keep their
politicians to three points only: “Two is a pair, four is a list, boss. The voter’s
brain holds three.”

And the points would have been worked out weeks
before, and repeated and repeated, so that the essence of the position is
unmissable.

As I say, basic stuff. But in the period before the
last general election, I came across this comment from a voter, reported in the
Financial Times: ‘I look at UKIP policies and I don’t know what on earth they stand
for.’

Today that could accurately be changed to: ‘I look at
UKIP policies and I don’t see how they plan to take the UK safely out of both
the EU and the Single Market.’

Instead of a three-point statement of how UKIP plans
to do exactly that, this is what Nigel Farage fed to the waiting reporters as
to his plan for the national tour in the bus:

‘This is not stage-managed, we are just going to roll
up, appear in towns and cities, meet a lot of people and do our stuff.’

This ‘plan’ has as much failure written across it as
the best man who decides he doesn’t have to write his speech, he will just
leave it for the spirit (and the alcohol) to move him to say something clever about
the groom when the moment comes: ‘I’ll just do my stuff.’

Beyond that confirmation of not bothering to work out
tour tactics, all the UKIP leader offered was a cutesy comment about
alcohol on the bus: ‘I’ve got the best drinks cabinet anywhere in the county.’

Then he promised his bus would be ‘a heap more fun’
that the other Leave campaign bus being used by Boris Johnson.

Journalism rule number one is that a reporter has to
file at least one quote from an event. What quotes did Farage hand the
reporters? Those two lines.

And how many undecided voters would be swayed to
consider voting Leave because of those comments? Exactly none. Indeed, the sway
could go the other way (‘A politician stuck talking about drink wants us to
trust him to lead us out of the Single Market’)

UKIP needs to drop the drink jokes. It just looks
tired. It is sways no undecided voters.

This bus launch was as much a wasted opportunity as
Boris Johnson’s damaging vanity performance earlier in the week, in which – in the
midst of a speech on the referendum that had some unusually meaty comments,
well worth quoting – he started to sing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in German.

Not only is Johnson a professional politician, he is a
former journalist. He must have known – it is impossible that he did not know
-- that the reporters and broadcaster editors would go for the German singing
and not the meat of his argument.

In a 15-second evening news clip, there would be no
room for both.

It appears Johnson cannot get out of the habit of
selling his own personality when he ought to be selling an argument.

Farage is doing the same thing with his tired comments
on drink and vague cry of ‘We want our country back.’ Yes, we know we want our
country back. But explaining how to get from here to there takes some brain
work. It takes the formation of strategy. Above all, it takes some prep.

Neither Johnson nor Farage seem to think the effort to
deliver on the prep is necessary.

Neither seems to grasp the difference between standing
for election with their name on the ballot (‘Oh, look, it’s that jolly good
fellow Johnson/Farage. I do like him!’) rather than trying to give confidence
to men and women that a decision to vote Leave will be safe for their jobs and
businesses, and better for their futures.

In between the German singing and the drink jokes,
neither part of the Leave campaign is giving a clear explanation of how British
business can get from here to independence without upheaval.

Neither is giving a clear outline – a clear warning --
as a repeated, and repeated message, of the plans the EU is making for the further rapid evolution of the Eurozone into
a centralised state with a near-helpless UK lashed alongside.

Undecided voters aren’t hearing any of that from Boris
Johnson. But then, no one is really sure his really wants Brexit anyway.

But they aren’t hearing it from Nigel Farage, either.
He used to be a great salesman. The opinion polls tell us that, these days,
Willie Loman’s best days are behind him.

Agreed. Boris thinks his bluster can win the referendum which will be the end of Cameron and he gets the top job. Then we would find out if he meant it. As it is, Cameron will reward him for sinking the Leave campaign. The EU can only ever want more Europe as that it is why it was created.

Couldn't agree more. I used to be of a mind that Farage's critics were being a bit unfair because then I was of a mind to think that at least he's taking the fight to the europhiles. That changed as I thought more of it and I became equally critical.

Part of my reasoning was that it was he who picked the EU has his political battle to promote himself and within that the EU Referendum - nobody else made that decision for him. It was down to him therefore to ensure he planned for success . I watched as he missed open goal after open goal. These failures are on him. He can bleat all he likes about an unfair fight but it can't have been beyond him to anticipate this. The blows from this only land because failed to have a plan that would have countered this.

For Restoring Britain, thanks for posting a comment. You mention complaints about 'an unfair fight.' Today the Leave.eu organisation -- the side of the Leave campaign to which UKIP is attached -- emailed this to supporters about the BBC June 21 debate and signed by Arron Banks and Richard Tice,co-founders of Leave.eu and Andy Wigmore, head of communications:'Nigel Farage, a charismatic campaigner with over twenty years' experience and leader of the only major, UK-wide party dedicated to Brexit, absolutely needs to be part of the debate.'

'It will be completely unacceptable if Matthew Elliot and Dominic Cummings, the backstairs crawlers behind the creaking Vote Leave machine, are allowed to sideline UKIP entirely, as they tried to with the planned ITV debate, in favour of a handful of Tory ministers who have only been part of the Brexit movement for five minutes. Vote Leave only won the designation as a result of corruption within the Electoral Commission, details of which we have passed to two Parliamentary Select Committees and which will be investigated shortly.'

That kind of whining is unworthy of a schoolboy. As for the accusations of corruption leveled against the Electoral Commission ---

Curiously, among my circle of friends and acquaintances there are no undecided. They are either In or Out, even if their knowledge of the EU is patchy or faulty. None of these people are strong supporters of any political party, Ukip included. Nor are they close followers of current affairs.

The Tory 'leave' campaign? Tory euroscepticism - a continuance of the EU by other means.